Gods

This article was written by Carl Llewellyn Weschcke on November 30, -0001 posted under God

Old and younger gods are buried and forgotten

From uprising to downsetting of thy sun,

Rise from eastward, fallen go westward and forgotten,

And their births are many, but their end is one.

Diverse births of godheads find one death appointed,

As the soul whence each was born makes room for each;

God by God goes out, discrowned and disanointed,

But the soul stands fast that gives them life and speechl

Page 155, The Winged Bull, by Dion Fortune

"The words struck Murchison like a knife-thrust. Here was the key for which he had always been searching! The key to the mystery of faith. The faith that would persist in believing, despite all disillusionment, that round the next corner it would find the Real and the Good. The gods of men’s worship were not things in themselves, but the creations of the created – the forms under which man represented to himself his ineffable Creator and Sustainer, the form changing as man’s power of understanding increased. The forms did not matter; peppery old Jehovah with his long white beard and golden crown could go into discard without anybody being damned; and equally, those who liked him could go on worshipping him still, without being damned either. You could help yourself to the kind of god that suited you, so long as you realized that he was only a dramatization. The real thing was behind all the gods, and no man had ever dramatized it. On your head be it if you made a nasty god that liked blood-sacrifices; or a silly god, who wanted to make a pink sugar confectioner’s heaven of this tough old earth. The nearer you got to the facts of your conception of God, the better for you, but no man ‘s concept has ever been the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, nor ever would be. When he reached that stage he would just quietly pass out and go free. God was the Absolute whatever that might mean. Murchison shrewdly suspected it meant nothing. Anyway, it was no use to the average human brain, which needed bulk to work on, same as the intestines. It had to have images and a story. God and the gods. That was it. God was many-sided, and you couldn’t see every side at once; and the gods were facets of the One. Christianity was a facet. Voodoo was a facet. The Tao was a facet. God was as many sided as the soul of man.”

Page 156, The Winged Bull, by Dion Fortune

"The gods, my dear boy, are lenses that wise men have made through which to focus the great natural forces."

"What have they made them out of?"

"Thought-stuff, my lad, thought-stuff. Are you any the wiser?"

"… Swinburne thought, as Nietzche thought, that the old gods are not without significance, and that we lose a lot by neglecting them."

"What do you reckon we lose, sir?"

"We lose the use of the subconscious mind, Murchison."

"We recover the use of the subconscious mind, and we get into touch with great natural forces from which civilization has cut us off."

Page 168-169, The Winged Bull, by Dion Fortune

"… All these animal gods are psychological formulae just as H2O is a chemical formula."

Page 179, The Winged Bull, by Dion Fortune

"…These symbolisms work out in a very odd way, though nobody has even been able to explain how it comes about. You meditate on a set of symbols which make up a formula and soon they begin to express themselves in your life."

Page 227, The Winged Bull, by Dion Fortune

"…the existence in Nature of a directive Intelligence, a sustaining Life and a creative Will;… these individual embodiments of these three Powers in Nature called in Egypt and Greece 'Gods,' in the East Devas, and in the West 'Angelic Hosts.'

"Occult philosophy shares with modern science the view that the universe consists not of matter but of energy, and adds that the universe is the Kingdom of the Gods. For fundamentally these Beings are directors of universal forces, power agents of the Logos, His engineers in the great creative process, which is regarded as continuous. Creative energy is perpetually outpoured. On its ways from its source to material manifestation as physical substance and form, it passes through the bodies and auras of the Gods. In the process it is 'transformed,' 'stepped down' from its primordial potency. Thus the creative Gods are also 'transformers' of power."

I've written a number of books for Llewellyn over the years—believe it or not, my upcoming release is number eight—but far and away the most popular one was my third, The Goddess Is in the Details. And I have to confess, it was my favorite too. (Shhh…don't tell the other books. They'll cry, and I'll have to give them each a... read this article